To ask what you think of weighing children in school

I didn't consent.
I can see if there's a problem with my dc's weight and will take action accordingly.

I think it's a good idea, but it needs to be carried out appropriately. The results should be very private from other students.

In my experience it's parents with overweight children that refuse to have their child weighed.

Because it would be quite helpful to be able to demonstrate the effects of lockdown changes to permitted behaviour on children's health (via proxy of their weight).

It could be key information when deciding the risk/benefits of future closures (if another bad new variant came trotting along).

The purpose of the survey is not really about the individual, it's for the population as a whole.

From another thread. My friend refused consent. When asked why she said "the government doesn't get to take away all of her sport and group activities for a year and then get to turn around and call her fat

Hmmm... looking at the UK childhood BMI categorisation tables, it appears that a 10yo girl can have a BMI that would be classed as overweight/very overweight, but which at 13yo would be classed as normal. I work with children that age and I would say that 10yo girls often do appear like perfectly healthy teenagers, and that may well be confusing for their parents.

This article about a study into how parents react to the letter is interesting:

bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-016-3481-3

@lazylinguist I think you're being deliberately dense here. The act of weighing a child doesn't miraculously transform them into a healthy weight but knowing that a child is under or over weight is the first step to doing something about it. It's obvious if a child is very obese but not necessarily if they're just somewhat overweight. Having the information is helpful. It's also useful to have a general picture about groups of children so funding (for sports and healthy eating programs etc) can be appropriately targeted.

Your child does not have to take part, but every child who's measured is contributing to the national picture about how children are growing.

The more children who take part, the clearer that picture will be. The information collected helps your local NHS and local council plan and provide better health services for the children in your area”

Obviously if your child is above a healthy weight you will be advised and offered support, but this information is taken for a bigger purpose- I guess like a weight census, by helping us to understand the population, it can be used to plan and allocate services.

I think it is important.

Especially with so many children in poverty and not all getting meals. This way they can maybe reach out and help. I hope.

I think it's important. It will also highlight if a child is underweight too I presume.

@cadburyegg Exactly OP and the 'healthy range' of BMI is actually very broad so it's unlikely that normal growing fluctuations or the amount of muscle an even very active child would have would push you outside of this range.

It’s not supposed to make them slimmer, it’s supposed to give us a snapshot of their physical health so that resources, public health campaigns etc can be planned and allocated appropriately.

Oh ok, I must have misunderstood then - so the official line is that it's not intended to be for the health benefit of the individual child at all? That parents are not informed of their child's weight on the basis of this, or advised to take any action?

@Oblomov21 Sadly the parental response to these weigh-ins has been to be very controlling with food and an obsessional response with exercise. It’s very worrying.

It’s not supposed to make them slimmer, it’s supposed to give us a snapshot of their physical health so that resources, public health campaigns etc can be planned and allocated appropriately.

Weighing people doesn't make them slimmer. It would be interesting to know how many children became slimmer and healthier as a direct result of having been weighed at school. I'm guessing not many.

"My partner’s family is rife with EDs and we see the damage that that is currently doing to their children. So my child is not participating."

Presumably you are already addressing the problems of ED's.
How would being weighed make that worse, to your children?

I don’t allow my child to participate. I’m a child of the seventies and I can see my daughter is slimmer than I was (I often see posts claiming children were thinner in the 70s and I look at my class photo and see how untrue that is and remember mums of thin friends worrying that they were too thin!) My partner’s family is rife with EDs and we see the damage that that is currently doing to their children. So my child is not participating.

IANAP but even I can see the importance in doing this. Not just for statistical purposes but for some DC, this will probably be the only time they are weighed/measured so there's no other opportunities to detect any anomalies. I can remember this from my own schooldays and you were never told your weight, it was just written down on the form.

@wirralwoods The National Measurement Programme was part of the evidence for introducing the sugar tax. That's a result.

It's also been used for decades as evidence for support of active travel measures. In the real world there are lobbies against active travel in favour of bigger, heavier, more powerful cars/ SUVs, and bigger roads and carparks to put them on. But there are actual planning guidelines that require walking and cycling to be made safe and attractive, and for children to be able to travel independently, as we used to.

Recently, (preCovid) children's independent travel to school went over a cliff, with almost no primary aged kids walking by themselves any more. This is the sort of thing you look for correlations in the height-weight data.

• that should say OR who have otherwise been involved with CAMHS

[quote Premier12]@riotlady I don't think the weighing at school caused you to feel like this, but more your dad poking your 'fat tummy'.
Surely if he didn't do that, jumping on a scale at the age of 6 wouldn't have been so awful for you [/quote]
Honestly I think lots of little things compound to make young girls very aware of their weight. There’s a good few examples on this thread of people who have had children with eating disorders who have otherwise been involved with CAMHS, stating that being weighed at school is a fairly common trigger point for children.

Agree - public health functions were handed over wholesale to councils then (because the biggest determinants are things like housing and education for which they already have responsibility)

The programme as a whole digital.nhs.uk/services/national-child-measurement-programme/ is still 'owned' by NHS in conjunction with PHE (parallels on other home nations) but the delivery is locally arranged. The process should not be significantly different, as there is overarching guideance

And yes, widespread opting out will skew the results, and mean the evidence on which interventions now and long term planning for services will be that bit poorer.

@meditrina wrote
Point of detail - schools don't 'do' it. Schools are the venue for the NHS programme

The responsibility for actually weighing and measuring was handed over to local authorities in 2013. Public Health England provides guidance which says the LA must ensure that a registered medical practitioner, registered nurse, for example school nurse, or registered dietitian oversees the implementation of the programme.

This means that the process will vary from one Local Authority to another and one school to another. The school has to provide the space where the weighing is done, and this can be logistically difficult, leading to the situations described where the weighing is done in front of the whole class. The school is also urged to provide assemblies on the importance of the programme - raising the likelihood that children talk to each other about weight.

It's very clear from this thread that some children and their parents do find the measurement process very troubling, and other parents do not have any comprehension of their children's classmates' anxieties. Although it's only a minority (PHE says under 10%) of parents who don't think the scheme is helpful, it's obvious from this thread that it is the kids at greatest risk of obesity or eating disorders - the very people you would want it to be most helpful for.

It also appears that the data is dubious - I can't easily see how many parents opted their children out, and if it's all the heaviest kids, that is so problematic.

We've had the sugar tax in place for two years, and we've had lockdown. We could do with seeing what both of these have done, but if the biggest kids opt out, we can't tell.

Opting out parents, what would make you feel okay about taking part?